Family Blog 1/24

 

Branching Out my Family Tree

I’ve always wondered why it's called a family tree. It implies you can perfectly trace your lineage: you can't (at least not me). The analogy is also just wrong. Your lineage gets wider the farther back you go (e.g. your roots), but a tree gets wider the higher up you go. It's upside down, and not green or alive. Similarly, asking “who is your family” is quite the open ended question. You could be asking what specifically are their relations to me, what types of people they are, how I perceive them, or anything else. I’m sure that by the end of this essay, you’ll have more questions than answers, but maybe that's okay. Maybe I’ve driven you to learn more about them. Or maybe you’re just trying to get credit for class. That’s what I’m doing anyway.

Fundamentally, my family includes my Father and Mother, the people who created me. Next comes my older sister, unfortunately. Finally, some might include a pet, like my deceased hamster Ginger, or my adolescent rabbit Graham Cracker. Together, they make up my family, and have assuredly shaped me into the person I am today. Little about us is shared, and I’d say we’re all drastically different people. Even our nationalities aren’t the same; my parents were both born in Spain, while me and my sister are American citizens. 

I guess this is the part where I’d individually describe each one, but I think that’s overdone. I’d be lying if I said I knew that much about them. The truth is, I don’t. I only know the part of them they express to the world, not the way they feel or the things they intentionally hide. Instead, I’ll be describing a few events we partook in as a family, and how each one of them acted, painting a small picture of the people they present themselves as. 

As a good first example, I’ll begin with when we got my pet rabbit, Graham Cracker. He came home with us when I was just 10 years old, and 8 years later he’s still with us. I’m not sure what I’ll do with him in college, but that's a problem for another day. Immediately, my sister was excited. I have videos of her recording the rabbit, salivating down the microphone “you’re so adorable… I need you” (creepy I know). Quickly though she forgot about him, leaving care of our newest family member squarely to me. My mom acts like any loving grandmother. Whenever she makes salad, she sets some apart to give to him. She regularly pets him and talks to him like he were a hairy toddler. Finally, my father as a germaphobe despises animals. He’ll observe Graham Cracker eat from a distance, never getting too close, always cracking jokes about releasing him to the wild.

Although the roots of our branches remain in Spain, together, the 4 of them and I make up our immediate family. I think we’re close. Ish. And yet there is so much we don’t know. Maybe it's our living proximity that causes this. By living close to each other, we ask less about each other, assuming we’ve seen it all or have time to do so someday. You’ll be pressed to find a moment where out of the blue we’ll ask my dad his emotions, or my sister how her day went. Or maybe that's just a me thing. A family thing.